Brian Sweeney President & COO Jefferson Health – New Jersey
What fundamental shifts are occurring in the healthcare industry? Many patients coming to the emergency department for lower acuity, non-emergency cases are now using urgent care, primary care or telehealth. We think this is a permanent shift and it’s helping to optimize the total cost of care. Telehealth programs and services are likely to become more comprehensive, as they have become critical in providing well-coordinated care. There will also likely be permanent changes going forward in terms of site of service from a surgical perspective. Many surgeries previously performed at a hospital can now be done in a surgery center. There has been a migration of lower risk, lower acuity cases to surgery centers. What is being done to improve healthcare costs? There is a lot of process redesign needed to position our organization at a point where we can drive the best possible outcomes at the lowest possible costs. Shifting patients to the most appropriate site of service is key in achieving that goal. We’re fortunate to have multiple surgery centers throughout the marketplace, where we can shift joint-replacement and same-day surgery cases. We are also very focused on evidence-based guidelines, which will be accelerated as a result of COVID. One of the challenges in healthcare, especially for us as an academic organization, is that we have a lot of smart people on our team. Smart people have a lot of strong opinions, so trying to align them around standardized, evidencebased care is harder than you think. When we identify the best treatment, that which delivers the best outcome at the lowest possible cost, we all need to conform to it. Decision-support software is helping achieve the most effective treatments. As a provider, it tells you the best possible course of action for specific symptoms and lab results. The physicians, PAs and NPs can override the suggestions because there will be exceptions. However, 90% of the time, the computer logic is right. Including input from the software leads us to better outcomes. We’re excited about the future of these algorithms. 130
| Invest: South Jersey 2021 | HEALTHCARE
There are 11,000 active or open clinical trials happening in New Jersey.
Biden’s signature stimulus and infrastructure bill, also boosts subsidies that would make health insurance much cheaper on the open marketplace. And it’s not just health insurance, but medical research in general that is in the crosshairs of this administration. The experience of the COVID-19 pandemic reminded everybody of the importance of investing in medical and research infrastructure. Internationally, the United States still reigns supreme in terms of scientific research, and this is not a position Biden is going to easily surrender, as he highlighted in a speech to Congress in April 2021, suggesting the creation of an agency similar to DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, but in the realm of healthcare. On the state level, Gov. Murphy’s 2022 budget continues his ambitious healthcare agenda. He has proposed the largest budget in New Jersey’s history — $44.8 billion — which is a 10% increase in year-
